Peter didn’t have the strength to add anything else. But his silence let Vivien’s imagination run wild and that was worse.
‘Luckily I knew her and managed by a miracle to keep her out of things.’ Peter put his hands on her arms. ‘If the story gets out, then social services get involved. With a family situation like yours it’s possible she’d be put in an institution. She needs help.’
Vivien looked him in the eyes. ‘You’re not telling me everything, Peter.’
A moment’s pause. Followed by something he’d have preferred not to say and she’d have preferred not to hear.
‘Your niece is doing drugs. We found cocaine in her pocket.’
‘How much?’
‘Not enough to suggest she’s dealing. But she must be doing quite a bit every day if she reached a point where…’
Where she prostituted herself to get money, Vivien completed the sentence mentally.
‘Where is she now?’
Peter gestured with his head towards a point somewhere along the street. ‘In my car. A female colleague is keeping an eye on her.’
Vivien shook his hand, to convey her gratitude and feel his warmth in return. ‘Thanks, Peter. You’re a friend. I owe you one. Hell, I owe you a lot.’
They walked to the car, Vivien going that short distance like a sleepwalker, with an urgency in her and at the same time a fear of seeing her niece and…
… the same anxiety with which she was waiting for her now.
A sound of footsteps behind her made her open her eyes again, bringing her back to a present that was only a little better than the past.
She rose and turned towards the entrance. Her niece was there, holding a gym bag. She was as pretty as her mother, and, like her mother, she had been broken in some way. But for her there was hope. There had to be.
John Kortighan had stayed back, in the doorway. Protective and vigilant, as always. But so discreet that he did not want to intrude on this private moment. He simply gave her a nod that was both a greeting and a confirmation. Vivien returned the greeting. John was the right-hand man of Father McKean, the priest who had founded Joy, the community that was taking care of Sundance and other kids who’d been through similar experiences.
Vivien lightly touched her niece’s cheek with her hand. She couldn’t help feeling guilty whenever they met. Guilty over all the things she hadn’t done. Guilty over being so busy dealing with people who meant nothing to her that she hadn’t realized that the person who most needed her was the one closest to her, who, in her way, had asked for help and nobody had listened.
‘Nice to see you again, Sunny. You’re looking very pretty today.’
The girl smiled, with a wicked but not provocative gleam in her eye.
It was game they’d played since she was a little girl, when they’d given each other these nicknames as a kind of code. In those days, Vivien would brush her hair and tell her she’d be a great beauty one day. Maybe a model, maybe an actress. And together they would imagine all the things she could be.
‘What do you say, shall we go?’
‘Sure. I’m ready.’
She picked up the bag, which contained a change of clothes for the days they would be spending together.
‘Did you bring your rock gear?’
‘You bet.’
Vivien had managed to get two tickets for the U2 concert at Madison Square Garden the next day. Sundance was a fan of the band. The concert had been one of the main reasons why she had been granted these two days away from Joy.
‘Let’s go, then.’
They walked back to where John was standing. He was a well-built man of medium height, simply dressed in sweatshirt and jeans. He had a frank, open face and a positive air. He looked like a man who thought more about the future than the past.
‘Bye, Sundance. See you on Monday.’
Vivien held out her hand, and he shook it. He had a firm grip.
‘Thanks, John.’
‘Thank you. You both enjoy yourselves now. Go on – I’m staying here for a while longer.’
They went out, leaving him in the quiet of the church.
The evening had chased away all trace of natural light, clothing itself artfully in artificial lights. They got in the car and set off for Manhattan. Vivien drove calmly, listening to what her niece was saying, letting her talk about whatever she wanted to talk about.
Neither of them mentioned the girl’s mother, as if there was a tacit agreement between them that all dark thoughts were banned from now on. They weren’t trying to betray or ignore their memories. They both knew, without having to say it, that what they were trying to rebuild wasn’t only for the two of them.
As they drove on, Vivien had the feeling that with every turn of the wheel, every beat of their hearts, they were leaving behind the roles of aunt and niece and becoming more like friends. She felt something inside herself relaxing, as if the image of Greta that tormented her days was fading, along with the image of Sundance naked in the arms of a man older than her father that tormented her nights.
They had left Roosevelt Island behind them and were heading downtown along the East River when it happened. About half a mile ahead of them, on the right, a light suddenly appeared, wiping out all the others. For a moment it was like a distillation of all the lights in the world.
Then the road seemed to tremble under the wheels of the car and through the open windows they heard the hungry roar of an explosion.
CHAPTER 12
Russell Wade had just arrived home when a bright light suddenly and unexpectedly appeared over on the Lower East Side. The big ceiling-to-floor living-room windows framed that light, a light so vivid it seemed like part of a game. But it didn’t go away, and continued to override all the other lights. Through the filter of the unbreakable window panes came the muted sound of a rumble that wasn’t thunder but a destructive human imitation of it. It was followed by a cacophony of alarm systems set off by the blast, hysterical but futile, like little dogs uselessly barking behind an iron fence.
The vibration made him instinctively take a step back. He knew what had happened. He had realized immediately. He had already seen and felt that kind of thing in another place. He knew that glare meant incredulity and surprise, pain and dust, screams, injuries, curses and prayers.
It meant death.
And, in an equally sudden glare, a flash of images and memories.
